Richard Dawkins, John Lennox, and What Happens When Someone Is Still Alive to Correct the Record

There is a conversation between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox that I have watched more than once, and there is one part of it that really stands out to me.

Not simply because of what Dawkins said.

But because of what happened next.

Lennox brought up something Dawkins had written in The God Delusion. Dawkins had questioned the historical existence of Jesus, and Lennox pointed out that historians, including historians who are not Christians, overwhelmingly do not reject Jesus as a historical person.

Dawkins responded that it wasn't important.

But I actually think what happened in that conversation is incredibly important.

And not for the reason you might think.

There are really two possibilities when someone makes a claim like this.

Maybe they know they are overstating the evidence.

Or maybe they genuinely believe what they are saying.

I have no idea which one applies to Dawkins, and I am not going to pretend that I know what was going through his mind when he wrote it.

But that is also not my point.

Because either way, what happened next was exactly the same.

Someone challenged him.

Dawkins wrote something in a book. He was alive. Lennox was alive. Historians were alive. The evidence was available.

And Lennox was able to sit across from him and essentially say, that is not what the historical evidence says.

Think about that for a moment.

Whether someone intentionally misleads people, exaggerates something, misunderstands the evidence, or sincerely believes something that turns out to be wrong, there is a major problem they face when the people who know differently are still alive.

Someone can call them out.

Someone can correct the record.

And when I watched this exchange, I couldn't help but think about the New Testament.

Because we are sometimes given the impression that the stories about Jesus developed hundreds of years after He lived.

Almost as if Jesus died, generations passed, everyone who knew anything about Him disappeared, and then Christians began creating stories about who He was.

But that isn't what happened.

Christianity exploded onto the scene in the first century.

The earliest Christian writings were being circulated within decades of the crucifixion.

Even more importantly, some of the traditions preserved inside those writings are recognized by scholars as being earlier still.

Then Paul says something that I think is incredibly important.

When talking about the resurrection appearances of Jesus, Paul writes:

“Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive.”

1 Corinthians 15:6

Those last few words matter.

Most of whom are still alive.

Why would Paul say that?

He is making an extraordinary claim, but he is making that claim while people connected to those events are still living.

Paul is not writing hundreds of years later.

He isn't saying that everyone who could possibly know anything about this is dead, so you are just going to have to trust him.

He is making the claim within living memory.

Now, does that automatically prove the resurrection?

No.

And I don't think we need to pretend that it does.

People can lie.

People can exaggerate.

People can misunderstand what they saw.

People can sincerely believe something that isn't true.

But that is exactly why the Dawkins and Lennox conversation caught my attention.

Because Dawkins could write something in a book that Lennox believed was historically inaccurate.

What happened?

Lennox challenged him.

Right there.

During Dawkins' lifetime.

That is what happens when people who know the evidence are still around.

And now take that principle back two thousand years.

The earliest Christians were not talking about some unknown person who supposedly lived in some unknown country hundreds of years earlier.

They were talking about Jesus of Nazareth.

They named places.

They named people.

They named rulers.

They named religious leaders.

They talked about His public crucifixion.

They talked about His followers.

And then they made the enormous claim that He had risen from the dead.

They made those claims while the first generation was still alive.

And don't forget something else.

Their opponents were still alive too.

There were people who absolutely did not want Christianity to spread.

There were religious leaders who rejected the claims about Jesus.

There were people who had every reason to challenge what the apostles were preaching.

Christianity did not grow inside a protected bubble where everyone agreed with the story.

It grew in an environment filled with opposition.

That doesn't mean every claim made in the first century must therefore be true.

Of course not.

False stories can spread quickly.

Rumors can spread quickly.

People can believe things that are wrong.

But when claims are being made while people who know the events are still alive, those claims can also be challenged.

They can be corrected.

They can be contradicted.

They can be investigated.

That matters.

And that is what I find so interesting about the Dawkins and Lennox conversation.

We get to watch this happen right in front of us.

A man writes something.

Another man believes it misrepresents the historical evidence.

And because they are both alive, the claim gets confronted.

Whether the original statement was intentional, exaggerated, misunderstood, or sincerely believed doesn't change what happened.

Someone was there to say, wait a minute.

That isn't what the evidence shows.

And this is why I think we need to be careful when someone tells us that the story of Jesus could have simply been invented.

Could someone invent something?

Absolutely.

Could someone lie?

Of course.

Could someone exaggerate?

Yes.

But that isn't the end of the historical question.

The question is what happens when you make those claims while the people who know differently are still alive?

Because a false claim doesn't get a free pass simply because somebody wrote it down.

People can challenge it.

Just like Lennox challenged Dawkins.

And this is where Paul's words become even more powerful to me.

Most of whom are still alive.

Paul isn't hiding from living memory.

He is writing directly into it.

Peter was alive.

James was alive.

Paul knew them.

The earliest Christian communities were alive.

The people who opposed Christianity were alive.

And Christianity was making its claims right in the middle of all of them.

Again, that doesn't force someone to believe in the resurrection.

Historical evidence doesn't work that way.

But it does make one explanation much more difficult.

The idea that Christians could simply create an entirely fictional Jesus, invent enormous public claims about Him, spread those claims in the generation in which He supposedly lived, and somehow have nobody around capable of challenging them.

That deserves much more scrutiny than it often receives.

Because the lesson from Dawkins and Lennox is actually very simple.

People can get things wrong.

Sometimes intentionally.

Sometimes unintentionally.

But when people who know the evidence are still alive, someone can stand up and say:

That isn't what happened.

Living witnesses don't guarantee truth.

But they make claims accountable to living memory.

And nearly two thousand years ago, Paul included four words that should make every person investigating Jesus stop and think.

Most are still living.